notice of the Jews would have been withheld, he having no inclination to accede to their persecuting intentions.*

[To show the variety of opinions which have prevailed on this subject, we subjoin the following. Bengel places the conversion of Paul in A. D. 31. Jerome, Petavius and Vogel in 33; Baronius and Tillemont in 34; Usher, Pearson, Hug, Feilmoser, and Winer (on Galatians), in 35; Basnage, Michaelis, Heinrichs, Köhler, and Schott (in his Eröterung), in 37; Eichhorn in 37 or 38; De Wette in 35 or 38; L. Capellus and Schrader in 39; Spanheim, Bertholdt, Kuinoel, and Winer (in his Realwörterbuch), in 40; Schott (in his Isagoge ad Gal.), in 40 or 41; Schmidt and Wurm in 41; the Chronicon Paschale between 41 and 42. The latest treatise on the chronology of the Acts, which we have seen, is that of Rudolph Anger, a privatim docens in the university of Leipsic. This is an octavo of 200 pages, published in 1833, and entitled: 'De Temporum in Actis Apostolorum Ratione.' The author endeavors to fix, in the first place, partly on astronomical grounds, the time of the ascension of Christ. This he supposes to be A. D. 31, or, the 784th from the founding of Rome. The events recorded in Acts 2: 43 to 6: 7 took place, in Anger's opinion, between 31 and 36. In 37 Stephen was killed, a persecution of the Christians followed, the gospel was preached in various parts of Palestine by Philip, Peter and John. On the 16th of March, 37, Caius Caligula became emperor. In 38, or not long before, Paul was converted, and went into Arabia. In 39 and 40, Peter preached the gospel in Lydda, Joppa, to Cornelius, etc. In 41, or a little previously, Paul's first journey to Jerusalem after his conversion occurred. He soon went to Tarsus. On the 24th of January, 41, Claudius became emperor. Between 43 and 45, Barnabas induced Paul to visit Antioch, where he spent an entire year. In 43 or 44, Herod Agrippa murdered James the brother of John. In 44 Agrippa imprisoned Peter. In 45 or 46, Paul and Barnabas were sent from Antioch to Jerusalem. This was Paul's second journey. Not long after, having returned to Antioch, they went on their first mission to the heathen. About 48, they returned to Antioch. Near 51, Paul went on his third visit to Jerusalem, respecting the question of the circumcision. In the same year, Paul and Silas journeyed to Cilicia, Lycaonia, etc.

Eichhorn Einl. ins N. T. 2 ch. s. 50.

This was Paul's second important missionary tour. In 52, the apostle visited Galatia, Phrygia, Troas, Macedonia, and Greece. He remained in Corinth till the spring of 54. He then visited Ephesus, and went for the fourth time, to Jerusalem. At the close of the year, he commenced his third missionary tour, staying at Ephesus till 57. About pentecost, he visited Troas, Macedonia, and, in the following winter, Achaia, where he remained three months. In 58, he returned through Macedonia, and a little before pentecost visited Jerusalem for the fifth time. He remained in bonds till the autumn of 60, when he was sent to Rome. The two following years he spent in that city, as a prisoner.-TRANSLATOR.]

LIFE AND LABORS OF PAUL IMMEDIATELY SUBSEQUENT TO HIS CONVERSION.

Paul, who had been so entirely and in such a determined manner a friend to Judaism and an opponent to Christianity, could not, after the great change which he had so suddenly and in such remarkable circumstances experienced, but be as determined in his opposition to Judaism. This fact explains the reason why his apostolic labors were so valuable that we must name his conversion as the most important event in the first promulgation of Christianity. We cannot but conclude, so far as we may judge of the probability of the case, that Christianity could neither have advanced so rapidly, nor itself been placed thus early in such decided opposition to Judaism, with out the conversion of Paul, or at least without some other equally important event in its place. We cannot but conclude, also, that aside from the personal activity of Paul, the first spread of Christianity, must have been very imperfect. In its entire connected development, so important an agent does he appear to us, that we are conscious of nothing so much, as of the vivid feeling of the indispensable necessity of an agency equivalent to his. This will be manifest in many ways in the sequel, on a nearer consideration of the labors of the apostle.

The sudden change which took place in Paul's course of life, was, at least in its main features, decisive. Luke informs us, that Paul, after he entered Damascus, remained alone three days, Acts 9: 9. This time, short as it may appear, was of great importance for the formation within him of a new life. In earnest consideration upon his previous life, upon that event

which had so powerfully affected him and wrought in him so remarkable a change, and upon the new course of severe selfdenial which now lay before him, he prepared himself for his assigned labors. By the blindness of his eyes deprived of external light, the inward experience of Christian truth elevated itself more and more in his soul.

Thus we may well conclude, that he was not brought primarily to faith in Christ by Ananias, the first disciple of Christ, with whom he came in free and friendly connection. This faith had already fixed itself in him with decided power. But the thought was to be awakened in him that his future life was to be as ardently devoted to the defence and propagation of the knowledge of the risen Messiah, as the earlier part of it had been to the overthrow of that knowledge. The plan of his future labor would naturally develope itself by degrees, and the particular direction of it towards the heathen would come still later with clearness to his mind. But to what degree Paul was indebted to the counsel and aid of Ananias, we know not.* It might have been, that this disciple, of whom we hear nothing further in the history,† communicated to him more minutely the historical circumstances respecting the life of Jesus, of which, it is possible, Ananias had been an eye-witness, and that, on the reception of Paul into the christian community by baptism, he had imparted to him more certain information particularly in respect to such facts as seemed to be of importance in confirming his faith in Jesus as the risen Messiah. From the apostle's own declaration to which we give firm credence, we must conclude that he did not derive the essential parts of his christian knowledge through the aid and instruction of any human teacher. He was himself conscious that a higher Spirit had touched him, and had enkindled in him a new light. Thus we account for that firmness and zeal which, immediately after

According to Ammon, in the Dissert. already referred to p. 156, Ananias was the principal means of Paul's conversion, Paul being not able to free himself from his terrors.

That he was among the seventy disciples is a mere conjecture, though no one can deny its possibility.

104.

Planck Geschichte der Einführ. des Christenth. in d. w. 2th. s.

§ Gal. 1:1 2. οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐγὼ παρὰ ἀνθρώπου παρέλαβον αὑτὸ (εὐαγγέ λιον) οὔτε ἐδιδάχθην, ἀλλὰ δι ̓ ἀποκαλύψεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.

his reception into the christian community, manifested itself in Damascus that very city which was to have been the theatre of his persecuting rage, and in the synagogues of the Jews even, to whom he preached as the Messiah, him whom he had before persecuted so bitterly. It is not strange that he should thus awaken the most earnest attention of the Jews, who had known him as the implacable enemy of the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, and who, besides, had been informed of the particular design of his journey to Damascus. Acts 9: 21. The contradiction which he met did not, however, make him yield; rather the firmness of his conviction increased by its open annunciation. He stood ready to justify himself to the Jews in their synagogues, and he replied to their objections so forcibly, that their astonishment was changed into mortification, and even into bitterness.

Of the manner of his first preaching, we can go no further with probability, than to say that the substance of it was this fact: "The expected Messiah has appeared in Jesus of Nazareth." Every thing hung on the reception of this proposition. Yet Paul did not disdain to employ the dialectics and skill in which he had been practised in the schools of the Pharisees.† More especially may we infer that his words, penetrated with the fire of his first love, a direct testimony of his own inward experience, would be full of energy and life. At least, it could not have long remained doubtful to the Jews, that they had much to fear from so sturdy and determined a defender of the cause of Christ; so much the more rapidly was their hatred to the apostate inflamed.

Paul did not stay in Damascus till the hatred of the Jews broke out against him in a formal persecution. His design to carry the knowledge of Christ where he had not been named, led him to go to Arabia Petraea. He seems to have been influenced to this step the more readily as he found that little confidence at first was placed in him by the followers of Jesus

Acts 9: 19, ἐγένετο δὲ [ὀ Σαῦλος] μετὰ τῶν ἐν Δαμασκῷ μαθητῶν ἡμέρας τινάς· καὶ ἐυθέως ἐν ταῖς συναγωγαῖς ἐκήρυσσε τοῦ ̓Ιησοῦν ὅτι οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ. Luke freely uses εὐθέως and εὐθὺς; often indeed, where it cannot signify the shortest time; but here the whole connection shows that nothing can be meant but the immediate appearance of Paul.

+ Acts 9: 22 Σαύλος δὲ μᾶλλον ἐν ἐδυναμοῦτο· καὶ συνέχυνε τοὺς κατοικοῦντας ἐν Δαμασκῷ, συμβιβάζων, ὅτι οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ Χριστός.

at Damascus, where his persecutions of them were still in fresh remembrance. In order that they might be convinced of his complete change, he could not at once, with undisturbed confidence and willing acquiescence, enter the places where he had excited fear and mistrust. Thus the new apostle must find out at Damascus, as he subsequently experienced at Jerusalem, that the friends of Christ were not able as yet to receive him to their hearts. This must have strengthened his determination to seek in another country a field of brief labor, partly that he might not be impeded by the impressions of his former life; partly that by the effect of his new deeds he might efface the remembrance of his earlier ones. To these we may add the circumstance that he, in his endeavors to establish a self-sustaining character, as he has left us many examples in his subsequent labors, deemed it proper to select a very obscure territory for his earliest service in the cause of Christ.* For we have clear evidence that the apostle, after a short stay at Damascus, did not forthwith proceed to Jerusalem, but betook himself to Arabia.

According to Luke's account, indeed, the matter would be doubtful. Here we learn that Paul, after withdrawing from Damascus and returning to Jerusalem, took pains to join himself to the disciples of our Lord, but that they kept themselves aloof from him. In this account, no journey to Arabia is mentioned, nor any other event, as having occurred between his departure from Damascus and his visit at Jerusalem. In addition is the circumstance, that distrust of him manifested itself at Jerusalem, so that he was not merely not recognized as an apostle, but the sincerity of his conversion was doubted, and consequently communion with him refused; all which appears to favor the supposition, that after a short absence he returned to Jerusalem. His cool reception seems accountable only on the ground that either the Christians at Jerusalem had heard nothing of what had occurred to him on his way to Damascus, or that there were yet reasons to doubt the news which had

That Paul in general acted on the principle of making known the gospel where it was not published by others, we learn from Rom. 15: 20.

+ Acts 9: 26, παραγενόμενος δὲ [ὁ Σαῦλος] εἰς ̔Ιερουσαλήμ, ἐπειρᾶτο κολλᾶσθαι τοῖς μαθηταῖς. Καὶ πάντες ἐφοβοῦντο αὐτὸν μὴ πιστεύοντες ὅτι ἐστὶ μαθητής.